June 9, 2010

Lindsay Lohan doing her best to become technocorrections poster child

Sentencing fans now have yet another reason to enjoy the guilty pleasures of the movie Mean Girls: it seems that its star, Lindsay Lohan, may next appear on either a wanted poster or on a poster advertising SCRAM, the alcohol-monitoring technocorrections device that she is helping to publicize. This ABC News report explains why:

Lindsay Lohan is in hot water again -- this time over her court-ordered alcohol-monitoring ankle braclet.

According to People magazine, Lohan's ankle monitor sounded an alarm Sunday night while she attended an after-party for the MTV Movie Awards. It's unclear why the alarm was triggered, but typically authorities are alerted when the device is either tampered with or the person wearing it consumes alcohol.

Whatever the reason, it was enough for Beverly Hills Judge Marsha Revel to issue a bench warrant late Tuesday for Lohan's arrest, claiming the 23-year-old actress was "in violation for conditions on bail," according to US Weekly.

Because of the violation, Lohan's previous $100,000 bail has been revoked. The Los Angeles Times reported that the actress posted new bail of $200,000 to avoid being detained.

On Wednesday, Lohan's attorney and the prosecutor were back in court for a closed-door session with Revel. Lohan, who is due back in court July 6, was not required to appear. After the hearing, Lohan's lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, told TMZ that Lohan's anklet device "indicated the presence of a small amount of alcohol on Sunday night."

"Having just received the report, I am not in a position to speak to its accuracy or validity; however, Ms. Lohan maintains that she has been in complete compliance with all of the terms of her probation and her bail," Holley said.

In messages posted on her Twitter account, Lohan also denied that she had done anything wrong and said the anklet, known as a SCRAM, or Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor, should have detected nothing. "I did not violate anything at all," she tweeted. "My SCRAM wasn't set off ... It's physically impossible considering I've [done] nothing for it to go off. All of these false [reports] are absolutely wrong."

Lohan was fitted for the device May 24 after she failed to show up for a mandatory hearing on her probation related to an earlier DUI case....

[A recent] report in US Weekly magazine [said] that the actress, who previously wore the bracelet in 2007, tried using a paper clip to jam the signal and perfume (which is high in alcohol content) to confuse the sensor. The magazine said Lohan denied attempting both tactics. But she wouldn't be the first to try to bypass the bracelet....

Vickers Cunningham, retired Texas District Court Judge and chief operating officer of Recovery Healthcare Corporation, a major SCRAM distributor, said that some offenders have attempted innovative strategies to bluff the booze detector.

Novices place cellophane or foil between the skin and the sensor. "The more creative people have tried to simulate human skin by using baloney or salami or ham," he said. One even stuck chicken skin to his ankle. But he said that the bracelets include several anti-tamper sensors....

He said tactics like Lohan's alleged perfume-spraying strategy are known as attempts at "spiking the bracelet." Offenders are told not to use perfume and other topical alcohol-based products around their ankles because it sends the reported alcohol level through the roof and masks any alcoholic beverages the person might have consumed.

But Cunningham said probation officers can tell when offenders spike the bracelets with gasoline, perfume and other substances and can send them before a judge to explain why they contaminated the sample.

Comments

Actually, to be accurate, I wasn't really correct--she didn't even get fined, but instead just got a higher bail.

If the judge had any backbone, she would have revoked bail and put Lohan in the slammer until the hearing. Lohan has no respect for the court system, which has already been unjustifiably patient with her sophomoric antics.

The rich and famous will never feel like the law applies to them until farces like Sheen, Lohan, and the rich girl from New York who kill her boyfriend stop being pampered by the system.

Posted by: Res ipsa | Jun 9, 2010 12:45:38 PM

Res ipsa --

Nailed it.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 9, 2010 2:06:30 PM

We know that beautiful women who commit crimes seldom are punished the way men are. years ago I was a public defender in los angeles. I was on duty. I got the call that a woman had been arrested smuggling 3 pounds of cocaine from Mexico in her suitcase. I went downstairs to the lockup, and there she was: the most beauiful woman I had ever seen. I knew she would never serve a day; and she didn't.

Posted by: public defender 1 | Jun 9, 2010 8:14:15 PM

personally i think its rediculous that she's still on probation 3 YEARS LATER for a mistermeanor charge! i mean come on!

Posted by: rodsmith | Jun 9, 2010 11:27:40 PM

Post a comment

In the body of your email, please indicate if you are a professor, student, prosecutor, defense attorney, etc. so I can gain a sense of who is reading my blog. Thank you, DAB